This invention relates to methods to control and prevent tick infestations in immunized non-bovine animals, including deer, which further protects the animals against the transmission of tick-borne pathogens.
Ticks pose a significant risk to the health and welfare of warm-blooded animals as the vectors for a large number of pathogenic agents, including protozoan parasites, viruses and bacteria. For instance, babesiosis is a devastating infectious disease that causes great economic loss to the cattle industry and is transmitted by cattle ticks, including Rhipicephalus microplus. White-tailed deer are capable of sustaining Rhipicephalus spp. tick populations in the presence or absence of cattle, and evidence has shown the role of deer in tick dispersal and tick population maintenance. The emergence of some unique strains of Babesia in humans in Tennessee points to a zoonotic transmission of babesiosis to humans, stressing the importance of tick control in wildlife and domestic animals Ticks are also carriers of a number of other common tick-borne infectious disease agents such as tick-borne encephalitis virus, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus, Nairobi sheep virus, Borrelia burgdorferi (the agent of Lyme disease), and Theileria parva (the agent of East Coast fever), as well as other injurious effects that have major impacts in human and veterinary medicine.
The white-tailed deer is the known keystone host for several species of tick, including Ixodes scapularis (commonly known as the deer tick) and Amblyomma americanum (commonly known as the lone star tick). Both of these ticks act as disease vectors, spreading for example Lyme disease, and both infest white-tailed deer populations in the United States. Studies have shown that white-tailed deer even act as disease reservoirs for the pathogens spread by these ticks.
As a result of the spread of pesticide-resistant strains of these and other ticks and flies, there is a growing need to develop improved tools for their control. Attempts have been made to use immunological means of control through vaccine technology. Some success has been met in identifying certain protective antigens of arthropod parasites as being potential vaccine candidates, but only a few have as yet come to commercial fruition. Despite these developments, there is nonetheless a continuing need for arthropod parasite vaccines and in particular for a vaccine which may be used against ticks, including the brown dog tick.
All of the references cited herein, including U.S. Patents and U.S. Patent Application Publications, are incorporated by reference in their entirety. Also incorporated by reference in their entirety are the following references: